


let’s meet again when the flowers bloom

by fogsmoke



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Body Paint, Insomnia, Jealousy, M/M, Painting, jaemin's a touchy friend, lapslock, renjun's jealous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 18:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14795843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fogsmoke/pseuds/fogsmoke
Summary: jeno comes home covered in tulip petals from his neck to his collarbones.(or, na jaemin is a painter and his canvas happens to be renjun’s boyfriend.)





	let’s meet again when the flowers bloom

**Author's Note:**

> hey! my luwoo fic blew up so i guess i’ll keep writing nct stuff :-)
> 
> this takes place in the ’80s! no one’s parents are mentioned / present in the story but they exist kffjkf

jeno leans against the lockers in the art hallway, practicing slow breathing to calm himself. he’s stopped right outside the door to the art gallery, about to have himself painted by none other than his best friend, na jaemin.  
  
he gives himself internal words of encouragement: things like “let’s go!” and “you can do this!”, which all sound stupid once he enters the gallery because he sees jaemin setting down paints and they make eye contact and he totally cannot do this.   
  
it’s not like he has a crush on him. he’s already dating huang renjun, the school’s known bookworm and nerd. but no one is immune to jaemin’s loving charms, including his own taken friend. jaemin is the school’s playboy and art hoe on the side, while jeno is the sporty kid who’s kind of flunking math and science, which renjun helps him with.   
  
what an interesting trio.   
  
“jeno! you’re here. good, the sooner we get started the better.”   
  
–   
  
jaemin’s still, delicate fingers tickle jeno’s neck as he adjusts his head. he gently presses the thin paintbrush against the pale skin there and gives light, small strokes along his jugular vein. jeno shivers slightly at the sensation.   
  
“stay still,” jaemin commands, but jeno can hear the smile in his voice. he bites his lip and tilts his head further. the paint is cold and sticky, but it’s his fault for volunteering in the first place. he had to, though — he’s jaemin’s best friend and he needed someone to practice body painting on. so, jeno sacrificed himself.   
  
“are you almost done?” he asks impatiently, even though they just started, bottom lip jutting out in a slight pout. the paint felt odd and unfamiliar on his clear skin, but he supposes it could be worse; at least the paint isn’t cracking and itchy.   
  
“be patient, lee.”   
  
about half of an hour into their painting session, someone comes into the art room. jeno would look up if he could move his head, but he hears jaemin moving beside him.   
  
“what are you guys doing?” donghyuck’s obnoxiously high voice comes from the doorway, and jeno cringes to himself. he always makes fun of jaemin for “having a crush on jeno” when clearly jeno is in a loving relationship and jaemin isn’t like that. at least, that’s what jeno always argues. jaemin usually stays quiet.   
  
“i’m his canvas,” jeno says, gesturing to the cans of body paint beside him. “he’s practicing... uh... flowers, i think.”   
  
donghyuck presses his lips together. “is that what he told you?”   
  
jeno’s eyes widen and he looks terrified at jaemin. “i’m joking, hyung,” donghyuck says, rolling his eyes. “though some of those flowers are shaped a little interestingly—”   
  
“hyuck,” jaemin seethes, glaring at the redhead. donghyuck shrugs and sits on a nearby stool. jaemin shakes his head and continues painting. donghyuck sighs.   
  
“why doesn’t he just take his shirt off?” he asks, gesturing to jeno’s arm. he’s wearing a tank top and his arm is out of its sleeve, exposing the tanned skin beneath. “he’s practically half-shirtless already, what’s the point of keeping the shirt on?”   
  
jeno flushes crimson and shuts his eyes, hoping that if he can’t see donghyuck, he’ll disappear. he doesn’t.   
  
“this is so boring. do you guys always do this? just sit here silently and touch each other’s necks?”   
  
jaemin huffs through his nose, choosing to ignore the fiery redhead and continue applying the magenta color to the tulip he’s currently working on. “quit being an ass, donghyuck,” jeno scolds, not needing to glance over at the younger to know he’s rolling his eyes. “or should i say, duckie?”   
  
donghyuck gasps. “fuck off, you know only mark is allowed to call me that!” jeno snickers. “oh, shut up, it’s humiliating to be called that.”   
  
“tell that to your cheeks,” jaemin comments, causing donghyuck to lift his hand and feel his face. it’s warm. he reddens more from irritation.   
  
“whatever. i’m going to the arcade with chenle. feel free to stop by when you’re done with your fucking flowers,” he grumbles embarrassedly before stomping out. jaemin smirks to himself, which doesn’t go unnoticed by jeno.   
  
jaemin was always the one to tease donghyuck the most, besides mark. he is his best friend, after all, and they’re the kind of best friends to insult each other in front of others but cuddle close when they’re sleeping. plus, donghyuck is easy to fire up and start a fight with. the feisty redhead’s always had a short-tempered manner, especially if mark was brought into the mix.   
  
jeno shudders and gasps when jaemin dips his paintbrush into more paint and trails the bristles lower, along his collarbones. jeno shuts his eyes, biting his tongue and resisting the urge to twitch, for jaemin’s sake. it’s especially cold on the sensitive area, and the brush is a bit poky, but he endures it because he knows that he can look at it in the mirror and see the beautiful work jaemin did afterwards.   
  
and when he does, boy, does he snap a mental photo of the way pink dusts over jaemin’s ears, and the way he smiles gratefully, scratching the back of his neck, mumbling a soft “thank you, jeno”.   
  
–   
  
jaemin ends up stopping by the arcade without jeno, because the older has other plans.   
  
it’s already 5:45 and he’s pedaling the fastest that he can to get home. when he turns onto his street, he slows down a bit, standing on his bike to see if renjun’s bike is in his driveway. it is.   
  
he pulls into his driveway and hops off his bike, laying it next to renjun’s and heading inside. he spots renjun on the couch, reading some board game manual before looking up. “where were you— what the hell is on your neck?”   
  
“jaemin painted me!” he exclaims excitedly, dropping his school bag by the door and plopping next to him on the couch. he pulls his shirt down to show him the flowers that extend to his collarbones and shoulder, yellow and magenta petals falling off of a cluster of flowers on his shoulder.   
  
renjun inspects the paint closely, admiring the intricate curves of the stems and the talented shading of the stigmas. he sucks his inner cheek. he wishes jaemin wasn’t such an amazing artist so he could find an easy way to trash his work. he feels jealousy boil in the pit of his stomach when he notices how happily jeno points out each flower and tells him what jaemin told him about the different kinds. he huffs silently.   
  
“they’re really cool, right, hyung?” jeno asks him suddenly, earning a startled glance from the older. jeno’s eyeing him worriedly but maintains a grin. renjun nods slowly, backing away and tapping his fingers on the couch.   
  
“yeah, they’re... cool.” i guess.   
  
jeno pulls his shirt back up and heads to the kitchen for a snack. renjun sighs to himself, leaning against the back of the couch. did jeno take off his shirt to have jaemin paint him? he had to remove at least a little bit of clothing for jaemin to have been able to paint across that whole area. renjun’s breath had hitched from how much skin jeno exposed, so how did jaemin react?   
  
he’s definitely overthinking this.   
  
he shakes his head to ease himself. it’s a friday, that’s what he should be thankful for. he gets to sleep over at jeno’s on weekends, sometimes with their other friends, too.   
  
sometimes with jaemin, too.   
  
renjun definitely does not consider himself anything more than an acquaintance to jaemin. he only hangs out with him if jeno’s hanging out with him, which happens way too often.   
  
he supposes it’s just because they’ve known each other for so long that they think nothing of sneaking in the other’s window at 11pm and secretly sleeping over on a school night. renjun’s too much of a paranoid goody-two-shoes to take such a risk. and jaemin’s surname might as well be ‘daredevil’.   
  
so he doesn’t consider them close one bit.   
  
but he lets himself secretly enjoy appreciate jaemin’s presence in his friend group. he’s one of the brighter personalities, and before high school he was also one of the louder ones. (now that title belongs to chenle, who started hanging out with them when he hit eighth grade.) jaemin is an essential part of their friend group. they have mark, the somewhat-responsible musical one; donghyuck, the annoyed gamer one; jeno, the sunshine sporty one; chenle and jisung, the young, adventurous ones; and himself, the quiet-but-more-responsible-than-mark nerd one. if they didn’t have jaemin, a melodramatic artist who’s best friends with two of them, it wouldn’t be quite complete.   
  
jeno returns from the kitchen while renjun is thinking, a snickers bar in one hand and an arizona iced tea in the other. he looks at renjun questioningly before shrugging and plopping onto the couch. “let’s play d&d with the others! please?” he practically begs, pouting at renjun and whining.   
  
renjun sneers. “you know how competitive donghyuck and chenle can be. they’ll throw a fit if they don’t win.”   
  
“but that makes it more fun!”   
  
he sighs and nods, rolling his eyes. jeno claps excitedly and goes to the phone, turning the dial until he’s successfully called mark’s house, figuring the others would’ve gone there after visiting the arcade. jeno never quite mastered the telephone, so he’s proud that it only took one try today. once, he’d accidentally called practically every old lady in his town before he managed to dial renjun’s number.   
  
he hears a brief silence on the line before mark’s slightly scratchy voice filters through the phone. “hello?”   
  
“hey, it’s jeno. are you with the others?” he twists the cord in his hand.   
  
there’s a few voices in the background before mark responds. “uh, yeah. you should come over, chenle’s spilling milk all over the floor.”   
  
jeno snickers. renjun raises an eyebrow and jeno holds up a finger to him. “we’ll be right over. i’m bringing dungeons and dragons.”   
  
mark repeats what he said to the boys and cheering ensues.   
  
–   
  
“whoa, where’d all these flowers come from?” mark asks when jeno and renjun walk in. he waves to renjun when he enters but doesn’t take his eyes off of the paint on jeno’s body. he reaches out to touch it. it feels slightly rougher on the painted parts than on jeno’s regular skin, but it doesn’t crack underneath his touch.   
  
jeno yelps, pulling away from mark. his neck is sensitive. “jaemin did that! it was so fun, but it took, like, two hours. he said he needed to practice painting on someone’s body for a project and i was like, ‘well, i guess that seems fun.’”   
  
“that’s what he wants you to think,” donghyuck mutters from the couch, playing with an old flashlight. “i walked in there and they kept touching all over each other’s necks and faces. also, he was shirtless.”   
  
jeno throws a coat at him from the coat rack. “no i wasn’t, hyuck is such a liar.”   
  
donghyuck rolls his eyes and turns off the flashlight, sitting up. “did you bring the good stuff?”   
  
the older cracks a smile and pats his bag, nodding.   
  
for once, donghyuck might’ve smiled back.   
  
–   
  
they play for hours, empty soda cans littering the table and floor, the giant family sized chip bag that chenle grabbed from the kitchen almost empty.   
  
mark checks his watch. “shit, it’s really late. are you guys gonna sleep over?”   
  
donghyuck’s already in his pajamas; he always sleeps at mark’s house. he’s got a pillow in his lap and his eyes keep fluttering shut every ten seconds.   
  
“sure, why not?” jaemin says, shrugging and setting down his can of a&w root beer. he stretches and yawns, scratching the back of his head and going to mark’s laundry room for a blanket. “i’ll sleep on the couch.”   
  
jeno’s face twists slightly before it lights up with an idea. “why don’t we both sleep on the couch?” he offers when jaemin walks back in. donghyuck and chenle wiggle their eyebrows at each other.   
  
renjun almost gasps as he looks at jeno. “then where do i sleep?”   
  
“uh... on the couch?”   
  
“jeno, you can’t fit three boys on one couch.”   
  
“if you really try hard enough, you can,” donghyuck says, eating another chip. “one night i fell asleep on the couch and the next morning i woke up to chenle and jisung on either side of me, sound asleep. i mean, i ended up falling off the couch and crushing jisung, but it worked for a good five minutes.”   
  
they all glance at mark for an answer. he is the oldest, after all — he should make the decisions. he looks around for a second. “okay, uh... donghyuck and chenle can sleep in my room, and i’ll sleep on the couch? jeno, jaemin and renjun can sleep on the floor.”   
  
jeno makes a sour face. “the floor,” he whines. “why can’t i sleep on the couch and jaemin and renjun sleep on the floor?”   
  
mark sighs, rubbing his temples. “okay. change of plans. donghyuck, chenle and i get my room. jeno gets the couch, and jaemin and renjun get the floor. sound good?”   
  
they all grumble simultaneously but agree, because it’s 11pm and they’re too tired to argue.   
  
–   
  
at exactly midnight, jeno giggles to himself from the couch.   
  
“what?” renjun murmurs quietly, looking up at him. jeno smirks.   
  
“it’s tomorrow now.”   
  
jaemin throws a pillow at him, which only makes him laugh harder.   
  
–   
  
jaemin wakes up suddenly, cold but hot at the same time, a blanket half-tossed on his body, covered in sweat. he sits up and squints his eyes to read his watch next to him. 2:52 am. he sighs.   
  
the window’s curtains don’t have any sun filtering in, and that’s jaemin’s least favorite part of waking up in the middle of the night. there’s no sun. everything is dark and bluish, and it’s ugly and depressing. he hates nights like this, especially if he’s at a sleepover. it makes for an unpleasant morning, where everyone seems happy about hanging out and eating breakfast and biking but jaemin is just groggily tagging along.   
  
he looks over at jeno on the couch, sleeping fine. with that, he notices the boy next to him also happens to be awake.   
  
“renjun?” he whispers, and the other blinks and turns to him. “how long have you been awake?”   
  
the older hesitates for a moment. “i think about thirty minutes. why are you awake?”   
  
“oh, i-i have insomnia. no big deal, but i just... wake up a lot and then can’t sleep again for hours. or i sleep too much. it’s a mess,” he says, adding a nervous, quiet chuckle at the end. if renjun notices it, he says nothing.   
  
they’re quiet for probably another good minute that feels like an hour before jaemin speaks up again.   
  
“renjun, do you hate me?”   
  
the other furrows his eyebrows. “what?”   
  
jaemin bites his lip and looks away. “nevermind, it was a stupid question—”   
  
“no, it wasn’t. and no, i don’t hate you. why... why do you think that?”   
  
the brunet presses his lips together in a thin line. “hmm... well, i know you’re a quiet person in general, but... sometimes it seems like you’re avoiding me? or you stay closer to the others and don’t really initiate conversation with me...”   
  
“is this because of the flowers? because i liked them.”   
  
jaemin gulps. “not entirely, but that too... uh, thank you.”   
  
renjun sighs and looks over at jaemin. “jaemin, i don’t hate you, okay? i just... sometimes, you know, you get a little... touchy with jeno and i know that’s just your friendly nature but i get jealous sometimes. i’m sorry.”   
  
jaemin stays silent, chewing on the skin of his bottom lip and listening for renjun’s quiet words again.   
  
“i have a question, too...”   
  
he looks over at renjun again, raising an eyebrow. “what is it?”   
  
“do you have a crush on jeno?”   
  
he almost snickers. he feels like a pathetic fifth grader who’s talking to their friend about cute boys. it’d be laughable if it were any other boy.   
  
jaemin fiddles his fingers and renjun talks again. “i won’t hate you if you do. i just want you to be honest with me.”   
  
he closes his eyes. he wishes he was just dreaming about this and he didn’t actually have to confess to his crush’s boyfriend. alas, he is awake, still sweaty, still in the dark, but now with an anxiously erratic heartbeat.   
  
“...yeah. i do.”   
  
renjun nods to himself. he knew it, but he didn’t want to say anything to jeno unless he got a confirmation.   
  
“but it’s not just him.”   
  
this, renjun should have expected. of course he doesn’t just like jeno, that’d be sad. he’s in a relationship. there’s probably some girl on the cheerleading team or the softball team that jaemin likes. maybe even a girl in his art class. but he looks curiously at the other, anyway.   
  
“i like you, too.”   
  
of all the names that came to mind — hyunjin, yerim, even chenle — his own was not one that ever crossed it.   
  
“...what?” renjun finally says, still shocked to his core. jaemin gulps. “but you’re never touchy or flirty with me like you are with everyone else.”   
  
“because i thought you hated me! i thought that you disapproved of me as jeno’s friend or something. like i was a bad influence.” he looks away.   
  
renjun grabs his hand and they make eye contact again. “i don’t hate you, and i don’t disapprove of you as jeno’s friend. i promise. okay? let’s just try to sleep again.”   
  
jaemin nods slowly, the warm contact of their hands going straight to his chest. he cuddles closer to renjun even though he’s still sweaty and uncomfortable, and somehow, the comfort of another person’s body manages to ease him back to sleep.   
  
–   
  
when mark comes out of his bedroom and sees the two laying together on the floor, he smiles slightly and goes into the kitchen, feeling slightly more motivated to ask out donghyuck.   
  
–   
  
it’s the last week of school, and jaemin has an art showcase. well, a body art showcase.   
  
a 5’7” model stands on a pedestal and poses as still as she can, nothing but undergarments covering her rose-covered body. the judges nod and take notes. they walk up to examine her closer, and she walks off after a minute and a half.   
  
jaemin’s foot is tapping nervously in his seat. heejin is next to him and she’s whispering words of reassurance into his ear. he always lets his anxiety get the best of him. when he spots his friends in the crowd of people attending the showcase, he almost faints. but he keeps it together the best that he can, waiting for the results to show up.   
  
a projector turns on, and shows all of the competitor’s models and their scores. yerim got a solid 9, heejin got a 9.5, and jaemin nearly threw up when he saw his name at the top of the top 3, with a full 10.   
  
he stands and accepts the reward with the wide grin he’s perfected to cover his nervousness after all these years. he’s given fifty dollars and a trophy.   
  
after he leaves the event, he goes up to jeno and renjun, who both hug him and kiss him on the head.   
  
“i’m so proud of you!” jeno cheered, bouncing excitedly. renjun kept his arm around jaemin’s waist and smiles at him.   
  
“i guess all that feeling jeno up really paid off, huh? no pun intended,” donghyuck adds teasingly. “let’s spend all of that at the arcade and get pizza.”   
  
they walk together, the trophy still in jaemin’s hands, and donghyuck continues to make sassy comments about jaemin, jeno and renjun.   
  
and if anyone notices mark squeezing donghyuck’s hand as they order a pizza, no one says anything.

**Author's Note:**

> if anyone caught that john mulaney reference i love you


End file.
